Sixty years and 14 states later, Groom never left

Sunday

Apr 29, 2018 at 1:01 AM

John Garmon left the small town of Groom 60 years ago to embark on a nomadic career in community college education in 14 states and one Middle East country, but the town of Groom never really left him as he chronicles in his book, "The Rise and Fall of the Texas Kid."

At age 13, John Garmon was restless. Having stolen soda pop bottles behind the American Legion Hall and sold them at the grocery store, his criminal past was catching up to him. He could also hear his parents arguing at night. It was time, time to run away.

No, I mean really run away.

Using his wages as a dishwasher at the Longhorn Cafe on Route 66 in Groom, Garmon bought a bus ticket to Amarillo. Inspired by a poster he saw at school, from Amarillo, he bought a ticket to Denver.

He wandered around Denver for two days, sleeping in the bus station while his meager money gave out. A Denver cop quizzed him, and took him to a juvenile facility. Finally, Garmon fessed up, saying he wasn't really trying to get to Canada. His parents wired him the money, and he returned to Groom.

A few years later, this writer and admirer of poetry could only nod when he read Robert Frost's line: "Home is when you have to go there, they have to take you in."

That was in the 1950s. Dr. John Garmon will be 78 next month. He lives with second wife Nancy in Las Vegas where he is a writing assistant for 20 hours a week at the College of Southern Nevada. It is possibly the last of 19 positions -- including one as a president -- in community colleges in 14 states and one Middle East country.

Indeed, it is not a straight line from the second of seven children of parents Cookie and Ora Lea Garmon who provided through minimum-wage work in Groom, Texas, to the presidency of Berkeley City College in California, just a stone's throw from the University of California.

It is this completion of a meandering and nomadic life with a realization forged by decades of just what growing up in small-town Texas Panhandle meant that gave rise to his new book, "The Rise and Fall of the Texas Kid" (available at Amazon.com).

"It was not just to take a look at my life, but also to pay homage to my family and my community," Garmon said. "Groom launched a lot of people into some great things. It's the recognition of family and community that brought me up and gave me a foundation that I've been able to use for I hope better things.

"Some don't like the idea of Hillary Clinton's book that it takes a village to raise a child. But for Groom kids, like most small towns, that was true. Groom was a place where everybody was really your parent."

For a former English professor and published poet, his book is not some sanitized version of an idyllic life in a community of less than 1,000. It's an honest look where, like many, he often chafed at his constricted world. Getting glimpses of bigger things from the country's travelers through Groom on Highway 66, the Mother Road, only added to it.

But Groom, like most small towns, forged in him values that only later in life would surface. It brought upon him a work ethic, a love of books, of writing, of creativity and imagination where often you had to make your own fun. Take it from someone from Groom who knows, that can be a good and bad thing.

Garmon gave himself the nickname, "The Texas Kid," after reading of Billy the Kid. For a 12-year-old boy seemingly always clothed in layers of dirt, it fit.

A few years later, as a senior at Groom High School, much to the surprise of the school librarian, Jack Kerouac's book, "On The Road," got on the shelves. It talked about such scandalous things as drugs and jazz music, but the travels spoke to Garmon and the adventures that were out there. He felt he was a prisoner in Groom.

His parents told him, like they told all their high-achieving kids, there was nothing for them here after graduation. They would need to leave. They didn't have to tell John twice.

He spent four years in the Marines. He then got a BA and masters from West Texas State in English that would launch a career in community colleges that would take him to both coasts -- to New York, to California's Bay Area, to a doctorate in the Midwest. He even went to Oman in 2008 as Vice Chancellor of Academic Affairs and Professor of English Literature at Dhofar University.

"I needed to measure myself against the world living in Groom," he said. "To protect myself, I was always running away, a loner, living a hit-and-miss life, searching for excitement, but afraid to let go.

"I had a love-hate relationship with Groom. As I went on with my life, I realized how much Groom did for me, and the meaning of Groom in my life. I still think about the people of Groom."

Springing forth from the Garmon family was a corporate executive, a medical transcriptionist, an ordained minister, and a heart-lung specialist. Younger brother Steve was an All-America lineman at TCU in the early 1960s who became a White House Secret Service agent for 20 years. Youngest brother Randy, a senior when I was a freshman, is an outstanding math teacher in Springtown near Fort Worth. The only two sisters have died.

John can't remember the last time he was in Groom, though it was certainly for a funeral. And he doesn't know if he'll return. But in distancing himself from his hometown, in a way, his hometown never left.

"The past is not dead," Garmon ends his book with a quote from author William Faulkner. "It's not even past."

Jon Mark Beilue is an AGN Media columnist. He can be reached at jbeilue@amarillo.com or 806-345-3318. Twitter: @jonmarkbeilue.

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